


And all the waves, the sea

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Dog surfing is a thing, Dogs, M/M, References to Depression, Surfing, Vicchan Lives, but lots of dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: August has always been a time for Victor to escape to one thing - surfing.  Specifically, surfing with Makkachin in California (surrounded by more dogs than he can count).  But an unexpected meeting with a stranger on the beach after a competition one year will lead to a cascade of change over the next four, and Victor’s life already in turmoil is suddenly left in chaos as he struggles to find the pieces.They shared their first kiss there in the sand, under the stars by the waves crashing nearby, dancing, dancing, with the sea and each other, and they let the night pass without care until the sun rose.





	1. Chapter One - Vicchan (and Victor) on the Lam

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure where this came from, really, but I heard a story on NPR about dog surfing and knew Victor would be all over that with Makkachin...and this happened? I also watched hours of dog surfing videos online and really, go do that. It's so cute, I can't recover. _All the dogs, oh my god._
> 
> A huge, huge thank you to Naamah_Beherit for not laughing at me when I told her what I was doing, and then for encouraging me to actually write this to completion.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! I had a great time writing it.

Sea water lapped around Victor’s waist as he held the surfboard steady for Makkachin to find her footing.  She lunged forward to lick his face, tail wagging and fur sopping wet under her life-vest, and he rubbed her face, her ears, her neck, and cooed sweetly at her in nonsense Russian as gentle little waves made the board undulate under the paws.

“Are you going to win, darling, are you?” he asked, voice pitched high and cute.  A starting whistle came from the shore, not very far away at all, and he glanced quickly in that direction to see the judges watching, to see dogs upon dogs running through the sand with owners and surfboards and towels.  He looked out the other way to see another, somewhat larger wave, coming in.  “Perfect,” he told Makkachin, who watched him with those large, trusting eyes, and kept wagging her tail.  “Ready?” he asked her.

Makkachin barked, noticing the wave herself and getting excited as she understood what was coming.  Victor let go of the surfboard, lifting his feet from the sand, and the wave took the board and Makkachin away from him on its crest.  He followed behind eagerly, a huge smile breaking across his face as Makkachin crouched to ride the momentum, and gave a short whistle to her.

She heard it and carefully turned around, facing him instead of the shore.  A ‘trick’, wasn’t it, for extra points, and Victor clapped for her, faintly hearing the cries and cheers and applause from the shore.  He whistled again and she turned back to the front, tongue lolling from her mouth, ears perked, just in time for the board to hit the sand with a gentle scrape against the sand.  She jumped off and immediately ran back into the water for Victor, who was just getting out.

She leapt at him happily, her trimmed nails catching on the short-sleeved shirt he wore over his swimsuit.  He leaned down give her a congratulatory cuddle for a moment before swooping to grab the surfboard and herd her out of the way of the competition.

They were in California, the sun bright and warm, the water clear, and there were dogs _everywhere_.

Scores of corgis, numerous German shepherds, a solitary Swedish vallhund, one handful of Scottish terriers, so many dachshunds, schnauzers and rottweilers and boxers, pit bulls of all shapes and sizes and colors, and only three poodles.  But there were so many mutts and mixes, all over the beach!  Victor had spent more time with the dogs, playing with them and petting them and cuddling with them, than he had in the water - which was just fine, really, because Makkachin did not need much practice.  She loved surfing as much as he (and she) loved dogs, and she took to it so easily.

It was a competition - dog surfing, what a _thing_! what a glorious thing! - he had been attending with her for two years now, far from home and delighted for it.  They both loved the sea, loved the beach, and Makkachin loved the action and the attention and extra cuddles given by strangers.

He watched as she trotted off to tussle in a game of tug-of-war with a labrador, rolling around in the sand and getting even dirtier than she already was, and sat back in the surf to watch a cocker spaniel surf next.  He gulped down some water, saving half for Makka, and unconsciously rubbed his thigh before the muscles could start to ache.

It was so warm here, so beautiful and full of laughter and joy and light.  He felt these things rush through him and vanish again before he could hold any for himself.

Much later that day, Makkachin won her size division, a happy doggy smile on her face and sand all in her curls as she sat next to her trophy for a photo for the local paper.  (That lone Swedish vallhund won his division, and a cute little Yorkie in the small division.)

Victor accepted his bottle of wine graciously, stowed it away in his beach bag with the rest of his things and Makkachin’s surfboard nearby in the sand, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the dogs until they all left with their owners.

He didn’t have to leave for home yet, after all.  

He had time to pretend.

xXx

“Come on, Makka,” Victor called hours later, stepping back out of the surf and clapping his hand against his thigh.  

The dog came bounding toward him, her tongue lolling out with her excitement, and she leapt over a wave as it came cresting in gently against the sand.  Her unused board was close behind, and Victor stooped to grab it up from the foamy water and tuck under his arm with her leash.

“Ready to call it a day?” he asked.  Makkachin stared up at him happily, her tail wagging and her tight curls a right mess with saltwater and sand.  He paused, though, even as the sun was making its way down the sky to start painting the clouds with vibrant pinks and yellows, the very beginning of what was likely to be a beautiful sunset, and knelt in the dense sand.  “Hmm, no, I don’t want to leave, either.  It’s so lovely here, isn’t it?  So lively.”

Makkachin sprinted the short distance to him without delay, maybe hearing the sadness in his voice but definitely wanting to push him down with all of her dog enthusiasm if he was going to get on her level.  Victor laughed as she jumped at him, wiggling excitedly and getting water everywhere, and they both fell back into the sand.

Water from the crashing waves still reached them, pooling warmly around limbs and torsos and paws before edging away, as the sea slowly slowly slowly lapped in for its last high tide of the day.  The sky was wide, the breeze crisp and filled with salt.  Victor sighed and stared up, up, and then out to the sea.  Makkachin ran around him, biting playfully at the waves.

Everyone else was packed away by now, the other competitors long gone, and they were alone.

Suddenly a fuzzy brown shape appeared out of nowhere, running pellmell through the surf with wildly flopping ears, and launched itself at him as soon as the distance was feasible, landing firmly enough with two paws on Victor’s chest that he huffed and sat up with alarm.  

Another dog, smaller and even more filled with energy than his own, had come from up the beach, owner nowhere in sight.  Makkachin turned immediately, her tail swishing with blinding speed, and they began to play without hesitation.

“Wait, wait!”

Victor reached into the non-threatening fray of spraying sand and leaping dog and grabbed the little one, who was wearing a bright orange padded life-vest, and hauled him back for a second.  The dog, who was a miniature poodle - possibly even a toy, given his tiny size - and an exact replica of his own beloved, squirmed happily at the attention and turned in his grip to swipe his tongue up Victor’s face.  Victor’s heart melted, as if it had far to go anyway, and he scratched the poodle behind his ears in an attempt to calm him down just a bit, enough to see that his collar had been damaged and the tags were missing.

“Oh, poor boy,” Victor crooned softly, catching the not-far-off attention of Makkachin, who came up to nuzzle both him and the smaller dog with a very wet nose.  “Are you lost?  How dreadfully frightening for you.”  

The poodle squirmed again as Victor spoke to him, his little brown eyes bright and joyful.  There was barely a hint of grey around his nose, just like Makkachin.  His life-vest, at least, was embroidered, and Victor caught a glance of the name _Vicchan_ before the dog wriggled out of his grasp and back onto the sand.  He didn’t go far, though, and he and Makkachin began to play again, sticking close to where Victor remained seated in the surf.

Victor watched them, at a loss.  The little guy’s owner was likely not far behind, and he didn’t mind waiting exactly where he was until their trio was found.  But at the same time, their hotel room was small and while Victor wouldn’t mind taking him in, what if -

A keen whistle pealed out across the beach, long and far away.  Vicchan’s head poked up from his play for a moment, one ear lifted, but then Makkachin play-bowed at him and all bets were off once again.  Victor looked in the direction the whistle had come from, but whoever it was was just a thin speck on the horizon coming closer.

“Vicchan!”

The wind blew in their direction, bringing ocean spray and the sound of a voice, sharp and calling desperately twice more.  

Victor stood, the dogs leaping gleefully around him, and waved his arm in the air.  The person saw him and hesitated, still rather far off, and then started coming in his direction at a faster pace.  “It looks like you have been found already,” Victor told the small dog running laps around his legs, Makkachin at his heels.

The figure came closer, and Victor considered for a moment hooking Makkachin’s leash, but then -

“Vicchan, oh my goodness, there you are!”

The man had come close enough for Vicchan to notice, and the ball of curly fluff let off his playtime and ran instead to his owner, who was jogging now the last few feet to them.  Vicchan barked happily until the man knelt in the surf to reach him, to clutch his face with shaking hands and scoop him up against his chest.  He stood.

“I can’t believe you,” he scolded gently, pressing his face to the poodle’s neck as the dog panted obliviously, tail wagging.  “I can’t believe I almost lost you.”  

But then the man seemed to suddenly notice Victor still standing there, Makkachin now sitting in the wet paw-dented sand, and he blinked quickly as a blush rushed over his cheeks.  And Victor - his heart leapt up against his throat as he realized just how... _handsome_ this man was, this stranger out of nowhere who had come looking for his dog on the lam.

He was shorter than Victor, his dark hair windswept by the ocean breeze, and was dressed in swim trunks and a damp tee-shirt.  The slight accent to his English made Victor terribly aware of his own, of all the words he stumbled.  But his _face_ \- his face was so very captivating, and Victor found himself staring as the stranger all but sank into the sand to avoid him.

“Um,” the man muttered, holding Vicchan closer to his chest.  The dog, for his part, seemed rather used to this treatment and did not wiggle the way he had for Victor.  Instead, he turned his head and nosed against his cheek.  “Um, sorry.  For any, uh, interruption.  The ring - the s-ring on his tag, it broke?  And, um, I didn’t realize I’d clipped the leash to the tag instead of his collar, and I forgot the harness for his vest when I went to take him out, and he just...ran off.  He’s..he’s never done that before.  Sorry,” he said again softly, looking down at his feet where they were getting covered in sand as the waves washed over them.

“It’s quite all right,” Victor hurried to say, taking a step forward.  He smiled widely, hoping to allay any fears this man might have when he felt his heart truly _beating_  now, strong against his ribs in a way he hadn’t felt in such a long while, filling him with warmth.  “We were just having a bit of fun waiting for you.”

He gestured to Makkachin, who stood and wagged her entire back half at the notice in her direction, tongue hanging out.  She looked up at Victor, then to the stranger holding her new friend, and trotted over to stiff at him enthusiastically.

“They were getting along famously,” Victor continued, his voice chipper to match his smile.  The man wouldn’t look at him, and he so desperately wanted to see those eyes again.  Brown, weren’t they, behind glasses that were reflecting only the setting sun back at him.

He just nodded silently at that, stepping backward and dislodging his feet from the small dips the waves had created in the sand around them.  

“Would you like to stay for a while?” Victor tried again.  He felt a clench in his stomach, something like fear, or excitement, or anxiety, and his grin pushed into something he knew so well as what others called ‘friendly’ and ‘inviting’.  It felt stale on his face, but he was at a loss, suddenly, to fix anything in his life.  “We can let the dogs play a little more?  It would be nice to have some human company.”

“I, um - I should bring Vicchan home,” the man said, taking several more steps away.  The blush on his cheeks was running all the way to his chest now.  “Sorry for - thanks for finding him.”

Victor watched him walk out of the surf into dry sand, and then turn back the way he had come, Vicchan still held tightly in his arms.

“Wait!” he called, running ahead just a bit with a startling intensity pushing him forward, refusing to let the moment go yet.  Not now, not with emotion bubbling through him again when he had felt so empty minutes, days, years before.  “What’s your name?”

But the man didn’t stop, and Victor wasn’t sure if it was the wind carrying his voice away or if he was being ignored.

xXx

“Victor.”

Victor hummed from his slumped place on the couch, turning slightly in his cocoon of soft, heavy blankets to look at Christophe lounging upside down on the bed surrounded by throw pillows.  Makkachin was on his swathed feet, Chris’s cat a purring weight on his chest.  He was in Switzerland, not having had the heart yet to go home when he knew what was waiting there for him.  

A respite was exactly what he needed.  (Not what he had just _left behind_ , he kept telling himself.  There was no reason to go home.)

“Are you all right?” Christophe asked, rolling to his stomach and setting his startling green eyes on Victor’s face with an unfairly piercing gaze.  “And I do not,” he added somewhat somberly, “mean you mooning over this ‘sexy beast’ you met on the beach.”

“Oh, but Chris,” Victor cried dramatically, clutching this string because it wasn’t even a  _lie_ , really, only part of the bigger problem of his entire life, and threw an arm across his eyes as he was wont to do.  The cat purred louder and began to knead against his chest.  “Chris, if you had seen him, you would  _know_.  Those eyes, so brown and sweet and lovely - and his thighs, and his voice, if only…oh, if only I knew who he was!  My heart is crushed!”

Chris scowled at him, but there was no anger to it as he flopped listlessly onto his back again.  “How do you get my cat to love you so much?”

“Animals just love me, it is a magical skill,” Victor said, kissing the air in front of the cat’s face.  The cat, for his part, snuggled closer and rubbed the top of his head against Victor’s face, still kneading happily.  Victor chuckled and scratched behind his fuzzy ears.  “Men usually love me, too,” he continued with a pitiful pout.  “But not this one, Chris, not this one.  He  _walked away_ from me.  It was awful.”

“Your sexy beast -”

“Do not call him that,” Victor interrupted obstinately, “it’s  _rude_.”

Christophe just laughed, and Victor smiled too, even if the happiness did not reach his eyes, his heart, his spirit.  Christophe’s joy was enough, just then, if he could pretend it was.  It chased the loneliness, the ache, away.

“Your Mystery Man, then - he must have been quite a catch.  And quite intelligent, too, if he was smart enough to walk away on first sight.”  Chris stretched his arms over his head and let them drop limply over the foot of the bed, watching Victor upside down.  Victor knew he understood, knew he _knew_ that, just under the surface, everything was ready to break.  

“You’ve been here for two weeks, lovely,” Chris murmured, voice gentle as he changed the subject to one a little closer to the heart of the situation.  “Stay for two months, for all I care, and we can talk about sexy - I mean, Mystery Man - the whole time.  But when you’re ready, I’ll listen to that, too.”

Victor shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, dislodging Makkachin enough that she jumped to the floor and gave him a disappointed glare for having disrupted her nap.  Victor understood the feeling; he’d done little more than nap the entire time he’d been in Switzerland.  Now he sighed and slunk lower down under his blankets, the cat following.  His knee hurt.  His hip, too, the joints and flexor muscles sore.  His entire leg on that side, really, was painful, and he hated it.

Silence had fallen, and Christophe was still watching him from across the room.

“I think,” he finally said, slowly, and it felt like drawing out the words was pulling sandpaper through his throat.  “I think I am about to be released from my contract.”

Chris sat up suddenly, his glasses knocked askew as he pushed himself around to face Victor fully. He fixed them unconsciously.  “What do you mean?” he asked, the playfulness he’d held before gone and the question quite serious.  “You think you’re about to lose your job?”

Victor chuckled mirthlessly, petting the cat again so he didn’t have to look anywhere else.  His chest was tight, and he felt an odd restriction around his throat.  It was difficult to breathe, in and out, in and out.  He ignored it, as he always did, letting out a sharp exhale.  The cat’s ear twitched.  “What use to anyone,” he muttered, “is a dancer who cannot dance?  It’s been five years, I will never recover enough.  They know that.”

“Victor.”

His name was spoken with such firmness that his hand stilled over the cat’s head, but he didn’t respond otherwise.

“Victor,” Chris tried again, soothing and patient and calm and everything else he ever was.  Victor’s best friend.  His only friend.  “You’re a choreographer for the Russian Ballet, you used to be one of their best dancers.  They will not just  _fire you_.”

“My inspiration is gone.”

Christophe huffed, the sound of it loud even from the bed.  “You say that every six months, do you know?”

“It’s real this time,” Victor argued, sounding petulant to his own ears.  

But he let it go, thinking of a life in Russia he did not want to return to, of his life here in this room, the pressure in his chest that was always always always there, following him from space to space, life to life.  He thought of the sea and the waves and the tide lapping around his ankles, and the pain in his leg, and the weightlessness of being carried into shore by the water, Makkachin so close by.

He thought again and again and again of the man on the beach, of his eyes behind the glasses that reflected the setting sun.

“Chris?”

“Dearest?”

“Can we go to the beach?”

xXx

They went to France.

The water was crisp and clear and blue and beautiful, and everything Victor wanted.  He and Chris, Makkachin running around them, walked through the surf and the white sands, and swam, and dozed in the sun as the warm wind gusted around them.

Three more days turned into eleven, and eventually Christophe was able to shoo Victor back home with his heart somewhat - almost,  _fractionally_ \- but perhaps not really at all - healed.


	2. Chapter Two - Dancing through Sunset (on the beach with two dogs in the tide)

Victor was relieved to be returning to California the next year for yet another dog surfing competition.  He knew his coworkers, his used-to-be fellow dancers, found him crazy for doing something like this, something so obscure and so very bizarre with his dog as his only companion (Makkachin was always his only companion, he didn’t mind), but as he walked across the beach the night before the event, his dog running past him and circling back with her long leash, the warm water pooling around his feet - he felt the bands across his chest loosening their ever-present hold just the tiniest bit.

He loved being at the beach.  Any beach, really, all beaches.  This one was no exception.

The water, the sea, made him feel calm, made him feel at home in a way his home in Russia did not, and he wished he did not have to leave again in four days.  He would only be returning to darkness, long days filled with untouched aches and loneliness as he was surrounded by people he had known for so long, in a world he had lived in for nearly his entire lifetime.

Makkachin began to bark, and he looked up, pulled from his wandering thoughts.  A dog and young man were walking ahead of them, paused to watch waves roll in, and Makka took off.  Victor was so surprised by her lunge that she pulled her leash right out of his hand, the leather dragging in the saltwater and sand as she ran ahead.  He ran after her, a jolt of fear lodging in his stomach.

“Makkachin!” he called, almost frantic when she didn’t return immediately.  “Makka, come!”

She did stop shortly after her mad dash began, once she found her doggy mark right up the beach.  And - it was - certainly not -

Victor’s breath hitched in his throat, Makkachin’s leash forgotten, as she sniffed around another poodle and began to whine, wanting to play.  It was - it really was the same poodle, little and brown and curly and excitable with the smudge of edging white around the nose, and the man - Victor realized he’d be staring at the dogs circling at the man’s bare feet, and he tore his eyes upward, heart thudding fast and hard in his chest.

 _Him_.  It was -

“You.”

The man, the beautiful, mysterious, strange man he had been thinking of since he had left a year ago was the one who spoke, and Victor gaped at him like a person starved for air.

“You - you’re back.”

Victor reveled in his voice, in the sight of him standing there so suddenly as if no time had actually passed and the last twelve months had been a dream.  They certainly could have been, for all the attention Victor had been paying.  He noticed then, as he stared at the man’s face, taking in his bright red cheeks and his sweet nose and his open mouth, and those eyes, the eyes he’d been trying so hard not to forget - he realized he hadn’t spoken yet as the man’s blush deepened across his ears.  He crouched to grab Makkachin’s leash and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

“I guess it was my dog this time,” Victor finally said somewhat bashfully.

“What?” he asked, staring at Victor like he had lost whatever sense he might have been making (which was very little then, Victor was sure).  He tugged Vicchan closer to heel and Makkachin began to cry, wanting desperately to play with the friend she loved so dearly.

“Oh, um.”  Victor dug his toes in the sand, growing horribly flustered under that beautiful gaze as it turned on him the way he had wished for so often over those lonely, awful months.  “You remember?  Last year, it was your dog who…?  Unless...” he trailed off, voice losing steam against the wind and his dying will to push further.  He turned his head slightly, staring out at the ocean and feeling utterly ridiculous for even entertaining the idea he could have found something, anything, to change his life.  “You’ve forgotten.  That’s all right, I understand -”

“I didn’t forget!”  

It was rushed and blurted, and Victor spun his head around quickly to see him blush a darker scarlet across his cheeks.  But he sucked in a deep breath and continued speaking before Victor could say anything.  “I really didn’t forget.  I just - I looked for you, for weeks after that night, and I didn’t see you again.  I thought - I thought you weren’t coming back.  I felt really bad for running away.”

Warmth rushed through Victor’s limbs, sensation returning to tingle along his arms and fingers and legs and toes radiating out from his chest, and he smiled as he hadn’t smiled in too long a time.  Such simple words to have such an effect, but he couldn’t help it.  “Really?  You looked for me?”

“My, uh, my name is Yuuri.”

“Yuuri,” Victor repeated, reverent, soft, turning the syllables over on his tongue and around his mouth, enjoying the feeling of them after the months without.  “Yuuri, Yuuri.”  It was another moment before he noticed Yuuri - _Yuuri_! - staring at him rather nervously, and he beamed and held out his hand jovially.  “It is a pleasure, Yuuri.  My name is Victor.”

Yuuri smiled back at him, a small, tentative thing though it was, and slid his palm into Victor’s.  It was warm and calloused, just like his own.

“Phichit is making dinner, I kind of need to get home.  Are you - will you be here for a while?” Yuuri asked haltingly, stepping back only bit.  Vicchan leapt up against his leg in the excitement of moving and Makkachin whined again.

“For a few days.  I’m on vacation,” Victor replied, already feeling his heart stretching to accommodate the new loss of him.  He put his hand on Makkachin’s head for her to nose against his fingers, then paused for a second before adding, “I can give you my mobile number?  If you want?”

“Sure, okay!”  

The smile Victor received this time was bright, full of enthusiasm and gorgeous glittering eyes as Yuuri pulled out a phone from the pocket of his dry swim trunks.

He let Victor put his number in himself, not minding that it was international.

xXx

Makkachin was definitely more excited for the competition the following day than Victor was.  This used to be the bright spot in Victor’s year, this surfing with Makkachin for one day away from everything, but as he waded out into the ocean with her on her surf board, her entire body wagging with delight, all he could think about was the coming evening.

Yuuri had texted him not even an hour after he left the beach, apologizing for far too many things, and Victor hadn’t wasted any time asking if they could see each other again.  Plans were made quickly.

He was still smiling, he could feel it across his face as the water splashed against his arms.

There was a whistle from the shore and he got Makkachin ready to go, tracking a coming wave.  It would be a perfect one to let her take, and he looked at her, beaming.  “Are you ready, Makka?  Ready to win?”

She wiggled happily, crouching down when she felt the drift backward as the small wave approached.  The crest came closer and closer until he let her go, the familiar thrill rising in his chest as he watched her surf away.  This was his happiness, his release from the darkness of his life, this world he created here with his precious poodle.  The excitement was there, after all, it always was, as Makkachin glided into shore like the best dog to ever exist in the world, and he lifted his feet from the sand to swim over to join her.

She jumped up around him like the perfect dog she was, eager and pleased and wanting to go out again, and Victor knelt in the surf to cuddle with her.  A retriever came in for a drive-by snuggle on his way out for his turn to surf.

Maybe things were about to change.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He was tired of being _tired_ , tired of being engulfed with pain while he watched other people do what used to be the only thing he loved, the only thing he had passion for.  He felt so lost, so stranded, and the way forward was too clouded to see.  If there even was a way forward, because sometimes Victor wasn’t sure of that either.

It was too much.  Or perhaps not enough.

Makkachin barked at him impatiently and Victor acquiesced without further delay, taking her back out into the water to swim.

xXx

The beach was beautiful as evening fell over the dunes, casting the sky with dusty orange.  Victor lied back into the sand carelessly, gazing up at the sparse and wispy clouds, out toward the sea.  Makkachin lazed beside him, huffing and planting her head heavily on his chest.  There were a few people milling about, walking up and down the shore, but it was steadily growing emptier as the sun sunk lower on the horizon.

Yuuri was meeting him here, they had planned and specified the night before, and now he was forty-three minutes late.

Chris, Victor was sure, would laugh at him, call him stupid or a lovesick fool for allowing himself to look such an idiot.  Victor supposed he was right.  He sighed, running his fingers through Makkachin’s curls as the wind blew gently around them off the ocean, bringing with it that humbling scent of brine that always made him feel so at home.  It was difficult to convince himself to leave, difficult to reach for the phone in his beach bag.  Yuuri would come, or he would not.  Victor was still - silently, even to himself - holding out hope he would.

His heart hurt, his chest tight with the ache of it, and he put his other hand down against his sternum as though he could relieve the pressure building there.  It didn’t help.  

Suddenly Makkachin sat up, her attention caught by something Victor couldn’t hear, and her tail beat madly against the sand to cast out sprays of it as a little brown ball of fluff came pelting toward her.  Vicchan leapt blindly over Victor, where he was still lying on his back, and jumped around her without pause, barking excitedly.

“You’re still here!”

“Yuuri!”

Victor couldn’t hide the grin that spread across his face as he lifted himself to his elbows, watching as Yuuri trudged through the uneven sand toward him.  His head was bowed, hair windblown, and the setting sun cast to glow against his face and reflect off his glasses.  Victor stared and stared as he came closer, surprised and pleased and so happy, and the bands of tension in his chest slowly began to release themselves away.  Waves beat against the shore, and he took a deep breath, hoping to remember this odd feeling of lightness as it crept through him.

“I am _so sorry_ ,” Yuuri said as soon as he was close enough to be heard without raising his voice.  He plopped down into the sand next to Victor, not bothering to unfold the blanket he had tucked under his arm, and glanced quickly to Victor and away again as that pretty blush crept over his cheeks.  “Vicchan tore up a toy and Phichit insisted on a funeral for it before I could finish cleaning the mess, it was really stupid.  I can’t believe I’m this late, I’m so sorry.”

Victor opened his mouth to tell him of course it was all right, he wasn’t going to leave, he never wanted to leave, but Yuuri pulled a small wrapped package out of his own bag and handed it over, a bashful little smile on his face.  “I brought cookies,” he explained, the hesitation obvious.  “I hope you’re not too angry.”

Victor took the proffered package and peeled back a layer of waxed paper.  A neat stack of perfect chocolate chip cookies sat there, waiting to be eaten, and the unfamiliar lightness filled him until he thought he might float away.  His eyes fixated on them, and bizarrely felt the sting of tears.  He blinked quickly to find Yuuri watching him furtively from behind startlingly thick eyelashes, tucked behind those glasses, and he smiled widely.  

“I could never be angry with you, Yuuri.”

“Oh, well, um - ”  

He cut off whatever he was going to say and dug into his bag again, coming out this time with a miniature camping lantern with some kind of LED light.  He set it on the sand next to them without ceremony.  “There’s a fire pit not too far from here,” he explained, his ears scarlet with Victor’s attention on him, but he carried on easily enough now.  “It’s pretty crowded with college students this time of year, though, since everyone is still out for summer.  Phichit and I usually like to hang out there during the fall.  But, um, I brought this for us to use when it gets dark.”

Victor pulled himself up to sit and cross his legs, the smile still on his face.  “Perfect, Yuuri, thank you for thinking of everything,” he crooned, perhaps just to see how much darker that blush could get.  He wasn’t disappointed.  He took a cookie from the tempting stack still in his hand and broke it in half, offering the other to Yuuri.  They began to munch, and Victor was delighted by how delicious the sweet was.  He had to shoo Makkachin and Vicchan both away.

“Who’s Phichit?” he asked after a moment of silence broken by the gentle rolling of waves.  “Is he a boyfriend?”

“What?  No!”  Yuuri looked downright startled at the suggestion, and he considered his response as he finished his cookie.  “He’s my friend.  We live together, we have an apartment just down the street from here.  We, um, we were both studying abroad for college and I guess we kind of clicked together?  It’s easy, being friends with him.”

He fell quiet again, and Victor looked at him.  Yuuri, though, was looking out at the ocean, at the waves cresting and falling against the packed sand.  The sun was falling quickly, and the dying light caught in his hair, on his face and neck, in his eyes.  He was beautiful, and Victor felt his breath stutter in his throat.

“You look familiar,” Yuuri said after a few more seconds of that wonderful calm silence.  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

There was a sharp pang in Victor’s chest then, and he reached for Makkachin.  She climbed into his lap without preamble, letting him tug at her ears without any kind of force.  “I am not an actor or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.  I’m not famous.”

Yuuri hummed, not thoroughly convinced, and he seemed to be lost in thought.  “What do you do?”

It took a long moment for Victor to respond, the air passing into his lungs heavy and tight and difficult and everything he wished it wasn’t.  He didn’t look at Yuuri this time, gaze fixed on his dog splayed across his legs as she sniffed at the cookies he’d set aside.  “I - used to be a dancer.  A long while ago.”

The reaction was not instantaneous, but Yuuri sat straighter, his expression reflective.  Waiting, perhaps, for Victor to say more.  He did not, and Yuuri was quiet as well.  “Oh,” he said after a few beats.  “Oh!  You danced with the Russian Ballet, didn’t you?”  Victor’s stunted nod was all the confirmation he needed, and a huge smile bloomed over his lips, leaving sweet little dimples in his cheeks.  “I remember now!  I, um, I dance, too?  Not professionally, not like you, but my instructor - she and I used to watch recordings, when they would come on television.”  

Yuuri paused to take a slow, deep breath and let it out through his nose.  “I remember you,” he said clearly, and the words went right through Victor’s heart, right through his body, and the lightness extinguished.  He wasn’t sure, any longer, what he was supposed to be doing here, where his footing was, and he was flustered and unsure of himself in that growing expanse of time.  Unsure of everything.  

“Hey - are you okay?”

Victor looked up, surprised to see Yuuri staring at him with a concerned pinch between his eyes.  Those lovely, _beautiful_ eyes studying his face, watching him, worried.  That would never do.  This beautiful man, he should never be worried, not about Victor.  And so Victor smiled, a small, thin smile that did not quite fit.  “Of course,” he replied easily.  “I just…”

But the words didn’t come, those placating, easing words, and silence fell.  Waves rolled, gulls cried, and Victor looked away.

It was Yuuri who spoke again, his voice kind, his questions unassuming and sympathetic.  “I never follow much celebrity news, you know?  Phichit, he’s more one for gossip magazines and all that - but I remember, I know you were injured a few years ago.  Is that why you stopped?  Dancing, I mean.”

Victor nodded mutely, still not quite able to find his answer.  Yuuri didn’t push, instead beckoning for Vicchan.  The little poodle scrambled to him and climbed into his lap, the mirror of Makkachin in Victor’s.  Yuuri took a moment to turn on the lantern, the blue of the LED casting against them sharply in the deepening darkness as the sun sank away.  The sea remained constant, rolling and receding along the shore, and Victor breathed through the ache.

“My parents,” Yuuri said into the silence of the ocean, voice a tender counterpoint, “they got Vicchan for me a few years ago, to help with my anxiety disorder.  They offered to find me a certified companion animal, but I saw him at the humane society here in the city and made up my mind.  He’s helped a lot, but...”  He sighed, the sound echoing very much what Victor so often felt.  “Sometimes it’s still a bit much.  Sorry, I know that’s really personal -”

“No, Yuuri, thank you.  I - ”  

He paused again, just on the cusp of the explosion he always, always, held back, and snapped his mouth closed.  No one wanted to hear him, no one ever heard what was so constantly held just between his hands, in his chest, in his heart.  That was fine, it was.

“What?” Yuuri asked, so full of compassion, his eyes sparkling in the light of the lantern.  He _understood_.  “What were you going to say?”

Victor glanced at him, feeling the tug in his chest, the yearning he had felt last year that had persisted so long.  Suddenly, suddenly, that distance, that need to keep quiet and still and suppressed - it all seemed unimportant, ridiculous, and he found himself wanting to pull this stranger in, wanting to share everything with him.  Was that crazy?  Was he losing what sanity he had left?  Because surely there were not many threads left in that daft, empty head of his.  He’d been told as much on numerous occasions.

“I don’t remember much of it,” he finally whispered, barely heard over the waves.  But Yuuri, sweet, wonderful Yuuri, did not ask him to repeat himself, or ask him to speak up as he _listened_ , and it was like a tap was opened on Victor’s tongue.  “The fall, on stage that night.  I just...tripped, and then there were so many lights, and so much noise, and people were crying.  I can still dance,” he admitted more to himself than his companion, “but never for an audience.  It still hurts, I cannot move the way I used to.”

“I’m sorry.”

This time, when he heard those dreaded words, he believed them, and he did not feel the same hollow emptiness they usually brought.  He smiled again, a genuine tilt to his lips when before it had been weak, bland.

“I choreograph for them now,” he continued, “and teach, though it does not hold the same luster.  I am more famous for my ghastly public injury than I ever was for my dancing.  Sometimes...”  He hesitated, and Yuuri watching him so openly with so little judgement was what prompted him to keep going, speaking things he’d barely even thought in his own mind.  “Sometimes the only reason I find to wake in the mornings in Makkachin.  And you thought _you_ were oversharing?”  He chuckled slightly, only a bit of humor to it.

Instead of saying anything, Yuuri abruptly reached out his hand between them, palm up and inviting.  Victor stared at it for a moment, surprised, and then slid his fingers into Yuuri’s, squeezing them tightly as their hands fell into the sand together.  It seemed okay, then, to change the subject along a subtly different path.

“You dance, too, you said?”

“Yeah,” he said with a sweet, precious smile that Victor wanted to keep.  “I started taking ballet with a family friend when I was a kid in Japan.  Minako, my instructor, she moved here when I was just about to start college to open a new studio, and I decided to follow her.”  He paused to look up at the sky, opening with stars upon stars, not blocked over the sea by the lights of the city behind them.  It was a beautiful sight, and Victor watched for a heartbeat before lowering his eyes again to Yuuri’s profile.  “I still dance with her.  Our little group, we’re not famous or anything, but we perform here pretty often.”

“Do you enjoy it?” Victor asked softly, the question also holding, _is this your life as much as it was mine?_

Yuuri nodded, seeming to hear everything Victor didn’t say.  “It’s hard, sometimes,” he murmured.  “I wanted to be famous, you know?  Like Minako was when I was growing up.  A primary dancer for a national ballet company.  It was my dream.  But...it never happened.”

Victor stared at him in the stark LED light, in the glowing of the moon and stars, and felt something ignite in his heart, something come alive that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.  And, for once, it had nothing to do with what he had left behind.  “Why not?”

There was that easy silence again, the rushing of waves, and then Yuuri said, “My anxiety.  I had this audition, for a company in New York, right after I graduated college.  It was a year or two ago now.”  This was something huge, Victor knew it was, felt the bleeding tension of a secret fleeting between them, and he squeezed Yuuri’s hand.  Yuuri squeezed back, giving him one of those precious, perfect smiles in return.  “I have the talent for it, Minako tells me all the time - but I choked, hard.  It was awful.  I never had another chance after that.”

The sea was a churning susurrus of sound around them, breathing into the night.

“Yuuri,” Victor whispered, his heart opening wide, “will you dance with me?  Here, now,” he added quickly when Yuuri cast him a baffled stare.  Victor got to his feet, tugging on Yuuri’s hand to join him as Makkachin rolled lazily aside.  “Here under the stars, to the music of the waves.  I just - I do not want to forget.”

Vicchan padded over to curl up next to Makkachin and Yuuri glanced at them, then up along his outstretched arm, hand still tight in Victor’s.  “Yeah,” he agreed quietly, to more than just the invitation.  “Yeah, I’d really like to.”

He stood as well, sand falling from his clothes as he did, and let Victor pull him closer, taking him into a loose embrace with a modest distance between them.  Victor began to sway them to and fro, twining their fingers together and, very gently, placing his free hand on Yuuri’s waist.  He was so warm, so real and alive and _there_ through the thin cotton of his tee-shirt, and Victor hummed a nonsense melody just under the cresting of the sea behind them.

This was contentment he’d never felt before, a blissful moment in the dark with a man he’d known for a year and for a handful of hours.

“Victor?”

Yuuri’s voice wove between them, low and soft as velvet in the dark, and Victor tipped his head to better see his face.  He sounded pensive, melancholy, and the change in mood did not suit their perfect dance.  “Yes?”

“Where do you live?” Yuuri asked, and Victor understood in a way he wished he didn’t have to.  “You told me yesterday you were here for vacation.”

Victor continued to sway them, never wanting to stop.  “That’s right.  I’m here for Makkachin, actually.  Dog surfing.”  Yuuri snorted out an inelegant chortle, and Victor grinned at the ridiculousness of it.  “She’s rather good at it!  I used to be, as well,” he said airily, bringing them around for a spin, “but dance took all of my time and now my injury - well, I stick to Makka’s surfing more than my own.  She won the competition yesterday.  We come every year.”

Yuuri stepped closer, surprising them both, it seemed, when he closed the distance between them to slide his hand up Victor’s chest and lower his head down heavily onto Victor’s shoulder.  “And when you leave for home?”

“I will be going to Russia,” he finally supplied, feeling a short puff of air against his neck when Yuuri sighed.  It made gooseflesh pop across his skin.  “Saint Petersburg, specifically.  My current work for the ballet keeps me moving around, though; I have a flat in Moscow, too.  Rather...far away, I suppose.”

“That’s okay,” Yuuri murmured.  “It’s not - it’s not _too_ far, is it.”

Victor leaned his head against Yuuri’s, his cheek resting against the warmth of Yuuri’s temple.  Something fluttered in his chest now instead of squeezed, and he took a long, slow breath there, catching the faint scent of Yuuri’s hair, the muskiness of his skin.  They kept swaying together.  “It doesn’t have to be,” he agreed quietly.

Yuuri’s inhale grazed across his neck, and Victor wrapped his arm around his back to take him into more of an embrace as they danced, as they swayed and swayed, the ocean pounding around them, the stars bright above.  Victor swallowed around the rise of emotion in his throat and pressed his lips against Yuuri’s hair, simply holding there as they moved.  

“I’ve never done anything like this before.”

It was another confession, Yuuri’s words both eager and afraid, and Victor squeezed his hand tightly.  “What’s that, danced with a crazy man on the beach?”

“Well, that.”  His laugh was melodious and beautiful, something Victor was sure he would never forget, never tire of.  Yuuri pressed closer, and Victor felt his eyelashes flutter against his neck.  “But _this_ , all of this,” he continued in a hushed whisper.  “Found someone who…”

“No,” Victor replied, hardly above the pounding of his heart, “neither have I.  But I would like to try, Yuuri, if you would.”

There was no answer at first, and the sound of the ocean swept around them.  It was beautiful, here under the moon and stars with the camping lantern casting sharp shadows across the sand at their feet as they moved gracefully back and forth.  Victor listened to the waves, to Yuuri’s gentle breaths at his ear, felt the warmth of his body so close.  The dogs slept nearby, peaceful.  

 _Peace_ , was the word he had been looking for.  That was what he had found here.

“I would,” Yuuri said, and there was a dampness at Victor’s neck.  Tears, cooling against the warmth.  Yuuri wouldn’t look at him, and so Victor nuzzled his nose against the side of his face, so full of affection and understanding and adoration.

“Then we will.”

The tears against his neck dried as soon as they began.  Yuuri sniffled and shifted slightly, lifting his face enough to press closer to Victor’s own.  Their noses brushed together, their lips.  Softly, softly.  “Will you teach Vicchan how to surf, too?  Like Makkachin?”

“Of course I will,” Victor promised without any hesitation, already loving the idea.

“And me?”

“And you.”

They shared their first kiss there, under the stars by the waves crashing nearby, dancing, dancing, with the sea and each other, and they let the night pass without care until the sun rose.

Victor had never been more alive, never felt more love, than he did in those hours.

The rest of his life felt so very far away.

xXx

The third year, Yuuri was waiting for him at the airport, that perfect, wonderful smile on his face to fill Victor’s entire being with light.

(Hundreds and hundreds of texts had been shared in the interim of that year apart.  Late night/early morning phone calls, Facetiming or Skyping whenever they could.  One or two - or five, Victor’s wallet would never tell - visits as time allowed.  But this time, already, _now_ , Victor knew his life was exactly what he wanted, what he thought he would never have.

He could never go back, never wanted to return to what he used to be before he met this stranger on the beach.)

There was a dog bed for Makkachin in Yuuri’s apartment, right next to Viccahn’s.

Makkachin won her dog surfing division again that year, and Victor shared his poodle’s victory bottle of wine with Yuuri on the beach as the moon rose.  The dogs played in the sand.  Victor dozed with his head against Yuuri’s shoulder, Yuuri’s hand threaded tightly in his.  

xXx

The fourth year, Victor stayed.

It wasn’t completely planned, nor was it completely spontaneous.

Victor _did_ spontaneously quit his job in May, on a bad day, a cloudy, painful, vaguely snowy day that reminded him too much of who he used to be, and he instantly regretted it far more than he thought he would.  There was a call to Yuuri that ended with more tears than he had shed in - years, really, and Yuuri reassured him over and over that everything would be okay, it would be all right, and this was not the end of anything, to take a deep breath, _please_ , and watch where he was going before he got hit by a car or walked off a bridge.

He received a tentative text the next day (because Yuuri was able to text shyly, somehow, and Victor loved him for it) that Minako, his own instructor, would hire him to teach at her studio.  If he wanted to.

Victor wanted to.

June and July both were a flurry of paperwork, boxes and packing and goodbyes and vet visits and visas for human and dog.  August found him sending said boxes and paperwork, and then boarding a plane from Russia for the last time, headed for another competition and, this time, for a new home.  He didn’t regret _this_ decision at all.  

(Neither did Makkachin.  

She won again.)

xXx

“Good boy, Vicchan,” Victor crooned, his voice pitched high and sweet as he leaned down over the dog on the surfboard with him.  He placed three loud, smacking kisses on the poodle’s sea-salty head and Vicchan wiggled excitedly, standing between Victor’s legs where he was sitting balanced on the board.  “Good boy, what a good dog!  Are you ready to try again?”

A dip fell out in the water below them, and Victor glanced over his shoulder to see a small wave coming.  He checked Vicchan’s orange life-vest to make sure the closures were snapped.  Everything was ready.

“Yes?” he asked to get a response, grinning when the dog’s tongue lolled out.  They began to rock forward, the momentum of the wave catching them.  “Here we go!”

Victor leaned into the movement, not bothering to stand when the wave was so small, and Vicchan braced himself with all four paws against the board, eyes wide, tongue and ears flying in the wind.  Victor burst with gleeful laughter at the sight as they were pulled along with the crest, picking up speed.  

Their velocity ran out when the wave passed, and suddenly Vicchan caught sight of Yuuri on the shore, waiting for them with Makkachin.  He began to jump and bark enthusiastically, wanting to go ashore _immediately_ , and his impatient motions caused the board to tilt.  There was a splash as they both hit the water, Victor still cackling and Vicchan abandoning him completely to swim to the beach.

Victor grabbed the board and followed him that short distance, his feet already touching sand under the lapping water.

Yuuri met him in the surf, reaching up to cup his cheeks and brush wet hair from his eyes.  “At least he’s learning?” he offered with a chuckle of his own.

“He’s learning quite well,” Victor agreed, ducking down for a kiss.  One turned into four - and then four into six.  Vicchan and Makkachin were chasing each other through the shallow waves, kicking up water and sand, and Victor wrapped an arm around Yuuri’s waist to draw him in close as they watched.

The sun was beginning to set with bright pinks, vibrant oranges, and the tide was coming in to beat slowly slowly slowly against the sand.  The breeze pulled around them, crisp and salty.

Victor smiled and hugged Yuuri to him tightly.

Everything was perfect.


End file.
